A. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to financial instruments, and systems and methods for issuing and administering the same. More particularly, the invention relates to systems and methods for separating certain payment rights associated with a pool of assets (which may or may not be securitized) from the remaining payment rights associated with the pool, such that the separated payment obligations form separately transferable financial instruments. Guarantee Certificates evidence an obligation of a mortgage insurer or a securities guarantor to make payments triggered by certain events, typically, default-related events involving a corresponding (in the case of a mortgage insurer) or an underlying in the case of a securities guarantor) mortgage loan or loans.
The present invention also relates to systems and methods for hedging risk of loss on financial investments. The financial investments may include a pool of assets (which may or may not be securitized).
This invention also relates to risk-allocation structures for a pool of assets, and more particularly to risk-sharing structures for reducing the capital reserve requirement of at least one of the parties having an interest in the pool.
B. Description of the Related Art
Mortgage insurers regularly write contracts that cover the actual or estimated losses associated with the delinquency and default of mortgage loans. In the absence of mortgage insurance, when a mortgage loan becomes delinquent, the holder of the note typically loses interest payments it would otherwise have received and also may incur expenses associated with foreclosure and liquidation of the mortgaged property. The proceeds from liquidation also may fall short of the amount of principal due to the note holder. If, in lieu of a foreclosure, the mortgage loan is renegotiated in connection with the default, the note holder also may experience losses associated with the workout of the loan. In any case, mortgage insurance would reimburse the note holder for all or part of the foregone interest, expenses and liquidation shortfall.
In the case of loans that have been securitized, i.e., turned into a security, mortgage-backed security investors may turn to bond insurers or government-sponsored enterprises to mitigate losses arising from default of the underlying mortgage loans. These parties typically guarantee the timely payment of loan principal, interest or both. In exchange for a fee, these guarantors absorb all or a portion of the losses that would otherwise be associated with the guaranteed securities. When a securitized mortgage loan experiences a payment default, the guarantor typically compensates the security holder for the difference between scheduled principal and interest payments and the aggregate net amount which is actually realized from a workout or liquidation. As is the case with payments from mortgage insurers, this “make-whole” payment is passed along to a security holder undistinguished from the payment of interest and return of loan principal through normal means, such as amortization or prepayment.
In addition, the guarantor generally ensures that these payments are made to the securities investor at the originally scheduled time, so that the investor does not bear the risk or expense of delays inherent in the loan workout or foreclosure/liquidation process. The existence of insurance for a mortgage loan, or of a guarantee for a mortgage-backed security, is generally established at the beginning of the life of the loan or security in question. A contract between the insurer/guarantor and the investor or trustee sets the terms of the arrangement. A feature of this contract is that the payment obligation of the insurer or guarantor always runs to the owner of the insured or guaranteed asset so that the asset and the insurance cannot be decoupled, even if the value of the arrangement to the owner changes. This feature makes the arrangement illiquid and potentially less valuable.
Investors who purchase pools of mortgage loans typically collect a great deal of information about the loans in order to assess the risk associated with the investment. For example, an investor might want to know the borrower's income, credit score and other financial obligations, as well as the assessed value of the property and the loan to value ratio. Based on this information, the investor can statistically evaluate the probability that the loans in the pool will default and thereby determine the price he or she is willing to pay for the pool of loans. However, if some or all of the desired information is unavailable, the pool is an undesirable investment. In particular, an investor may be reluctant to purchase such a pool or may be willing only to pay a low price for it. And although an investor may attempt to hedge the risk of loss on such a pool, available hedging techniques do not accurately reflect the probability that the loans in the pool will default.
Insurance and hedges are generally available for the typical, well-understood risks associated with common assets and investments. For example, the common stock of a company has associated market risk, i.e., the risk that the stock price will drop due to an overall drop in the stock market, independent of the actions of the company or its prospects. One way an investor in common stock can hedge against market risk is by acquiring positions in a market-index-based security that will increase in value if the market index drops in value, such as puts (i.e., a short sale) on a SPYDER (a security that is designed to perform in the same way as the Standard & Poor's 500 index).
Risks that are unknown, new, or uncommon are difficult to hedge against because they are not understood well enough for the market to offer hedging products at a reasonable price. For example, lenders, such as banks, typically originate loans according to industry guidelines, which are often set out by the entities that subsequently take an interest in the loans from the originators, such as a subsequent purchaser, insurer, guarantor, or securitizer. Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and mortgage insurance companies are examples of such entities in the case of home mortgage loans. For any given class of loan, the guidelines typically specify, among other things, the minimum borrower credit ratings and Fair, Isaac and Company (FICO) scores, borrower income, borrower assets, the amount and type of documentation required to verify the information supplied by the borrower, the type of collateral required, the minimum loan to value ratio, etc. If a lender originates a loan using a process or parameters that vary from the guidelines, then an entity that normally would take an interest in the loan, such as a loan guarantor, may balk at doing so because it is uncomfortable with, does not understand, and does not know how to price the unknown risk associated with the lender's variance from the guidelines.
Accordingly, unknown, new, uncommon, or not-well-understood risks associated with an asset pose a problem if not separated or isolated such that the remaining well-understood risk can be insured, guaranteed, or hedged against in the marketplace. One solution, a reference pool structure, as described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/096,584, is effective in isolating and limiting such unknown risks for a group of assets. A reference pool solution, however, may result in disadvantageous capital reserve requirements for capital regulated institutions, such as banks, bank holding companies, thrifts and other lenders and depositories that are subject to regulation by state and federal regulatory agencies, such as the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
Regulated banks are required by federal and state regulations to hold a specified amount of capital in reserve (“reserve capital”) against the total assets they have on their balance sheet. Typically, the reserve capital is simply the mathematical difference between the institution's assets and its liabilities. In the past under previous regulations, the capital reserve requirement for the total assets held by a bank was simple to calculate. The regulations called for a flat ratio of reserve capital to balance sheet assets, calculated by multiplying the value of all assets held by a bank by a fixed percentage. For example, if a bank held $500 in assets, the old regulations required the bank holding these assets to have $500×6%=$30 as reserve capital against the assets. Under the flat ratio capital reserve requirements, the identity or characteristics of the balance sheet assets did not matter. Thus, regardless of whether the assets were $500 of almost risk-free U.S. Treasury bonds or $500 of risky commercial loans, the capital reserve requirement was the same $30.
Over time, the capital reserve requirements evolved from a flat ratio to ratios based on asset type. Under the asset-type capital reserve requirements, each specified type of asset held by a capital-regulated institution had a specific capital reserve requirement associated with it. For example, if a bank held a mortgage loan in its portfolio, the asset-type capital reserve requirements required it to hold 4% reserve capital against loan-type assets, which meant that it could not fund more than 96% of the loan with debt. The regulators required the bank to have 4% reserve capital set aside to absorb losses on the loan that might occur. Thus, if the bank held a $100,000 mortgage on its books, it was required to have at least $4,000 of reserve capital to back up the loan.
While the asset-type capital reserve requirement is more reflective of risk than the flat ratio capital reserve requirement, it still has inequities. For example, under the asset-type capital reserve requirement, a bank holding $500 in high-quality commercial loans, which have a low risk of losing value, has the same capital reserve requirement as a bank holding $500 in low-quality commercial loans that have a significantly higher risk of default. By not fully considering the risk involved, the asset-type capital reserve requirements fail to fully reflect market conditions associated with the assets.
Some regulatory agencies are now moving to risk-based ratio capital reserve requirements, which are a more ratings-based, risk-weighted approach for determining the capital reserve requirements for a capital-regulated institution. The regulatory agencies are recognizing that credit risk ratings, as conventionally used in the public bond markets, for example, are useful for fairly determining capital reserve requirements for certain bank-held assets, such as rated bonds. For example, a AAA-rated bond is less risky than a BB-rated bond. Regulatory agencies have begun to tier capital reserve requirements based on a risk-weighted approach such that, for example, banks are required to hold less reserve capital for low risk rated securities than for high risk rated securities. Thus, some regulatory agencies recognize that AAA-rated corporate bonds held by a bank are less risky, and therefore require less reserve capital to cover losses, than BB-rated corporate bonds.
FIG. 9 illustrates two examples of different types of capital reserve requirements. Table 900 illustrates an example of risk-based capital reserve requirements. As shown, the Regulatory Rating Category column 910 specifies four exemplary asset rating categories: a Cash Equivalents category in row 950 (which includes U.S. Treasury bonds), a AAA/AA/MBS category in row 960 (which includes AAA- to AA-rated securities and mortgage-backed securities issued by government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae), an A to BBB category in row 970 (which includes A- to BBB-rated securities), and an “Other” category in row 980 (which includes everything else). The ratings categories are a measure of the risk associated with the assets identified as belonging to each category. The rating categories are exemplary, and more, fewer, or different categories may be used by various regulators. In addition, risk measurements other than those provided by ratings agencies are also consistent with the principles of the invention.
As shown, the Amount of Assets column 920 contains an exemplary dollar value of assets held by a capital-regulated institution. In this example, the institution has $100 in U.S. Treasury bonds and cash (column 920, row 950), which regulatory agencies consider a Cash Equivalent category asset; $100 worth of AAA-rated bonds, AA-rated bonds, and Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae mortgage-backed securities (column 920, row 960), which regulators consider AAA/AA/MBS category assets; $100 worth of A- to BBB-rated securities (column 920, row 970), which are considered A to BBB category assets; and $100 in commercial loans (column 920, row 980), which are considered to fall into the “Other” category. The “Other” category also may include assets such as consumer loans, junk bonds, office buildings, fixed assets, etc., that do not fall into any of the preceding categories. Thus in the example shown by table 900, the capital-regulated institution holds $400 in total assets (995).
The Risk-Based Ratio column 930 contains a multiplication factor for each rating category 910. This factor weights the capital reserve requirement according to the risk associated with the assets in each category. The lower the risk, the less the required reserve capital. The higher the risk, the higher the required reserve capital. For example, as shown in table 900, assets rated in the Cash Equivalents category 950 require no capital reserve (0%), because such assets are essentially risk free. A- to BBB-rated bonds 970, on the other hand, are subject to a 50% risk-based ratio 930. The risk-based ratio 930 for each rating category 910 is typically set by regulatory agencies, and may change or be different from the exemplary ratios shown in FIG. 9.
The next column in table 900 is the Base Capital Charge column 940. In the example shown, the base capital charge is 8% for each rating category 910. The base capital charge 940 for each rating category 910 is typically set by government regulators, and may change or be different from the exemplary charges shown in FIG. 9. For example, in general, regulatory agencies apply an 8% base capital charge to “Other” assets. There are, however, some assets in that category (e.g., very risky investments) that could require dollar-for-dollar reserve capital; i.e., a 100% base capital charge because of the large risk of losses associated with such assets.
Column 945 shows the Capital Reserve Requirements for a capital-regulated institution holding the assets shown in column 920. The capital reserve requirements 945 for each of the assets 920 in each of the rating categories 910 is obtained by multiplying the amount of assets 920 by the risk-based ratio 930 and the base capital charge 940. For example, the $100 worth of AAA/AA/MBS category assets (row 960, column 920) is multiplied by the 20% risk-based ratio (row 960, column 930) and the 8% base capital charge (row 960, column 940) to yield a capital reserve requirement of $1.60 for these assets (row 960, column 945). The total reserve capital required for the $400 worth of total assets 995 is the sum of the capital reserve requirements for each category 910, which is $13.60 (998) in this example.
Table 901 illustrates the reserve capital required for the same assets under the old flat ratio capital reserve requirements. A capital-regulated institution with the assets shown in column 921 of table 901 would be required to hold $400 (996)×6% (column 931)=$24 (999) as reserve capital against such assets. As illustrated by table 900, under the risk-based ratio capital reserve requirements, the reserve capital requirement is $13.60. Thus, in this example, the risk-based ratio capital reserve requirements reduce the reserve capital required by 43% over the flat ratio capital reserve requirements, reflecting the low-risk nature of part of the total assets.
Conventionally, the risk-based ratio capital reserve requirements apply to securitized assets or securities rated by a ratings agency, such as corporate bonds rated by Standard & Poor's. Thus, for a capital-regulated institution holding assets other than rated securities, the assets fall into the “Other” category 980 and the institution is required to hold the maximum amount of reserve capital against the assets, regardless of their qualities or characteristics. For example, if a bank held $400 in unsecuritized commercial loans, then under the risk-based ratio capital reserve requirements illustrated by table 900, the bank would be required to hold $32 in reserve capital against the commercial loans, even if they were as risk-free as cash. This same situation holds true for any asset that falls into a category representing more risk than the rated risk associated with the asset.
For capital-regulated institutions, it is desirable to minimize the level of reserve capital that must be held under the capital reserve requirements.